You throw the ball. You catch the ball. You hit the ball…Of course, baseball fans know that this line from Bull Durham is far from true, part of the humor of the movie and a huge part of the fun of the game. This blog is a space to talk about baseball, being a baseball fan, all of those things that make the game fun and the Angels, because they make baseball fun for me.

Jered Weaver Collects His 7th Win + I’m in a Paso Robles State of Mind

I am very careful in my work and take pride in not making many mistakes. But when I do make them, they tend to all occur at once. A mini slump, if you will. Today was one of those days. Mistake 1 begat Mistake 2 and it’s more public sister, Mistake 3. I owned up to them and put out the resulting fires. But it’s good that we’re driving to Paso Robles for the weekend as I typed this because, honestly, somtimes to get out of the head space that causes a cycle of mistakes to perpetuate like that, you just have to get out of town…

…Or come home again! The Angels broke up their own cycle of mistakes this evening with a much needed win over the Yankees, a win made all the more important by the fact that it was finally win #7 for Jered Weaver. So, was it a brilliant, awe-inspiring performance? Did the Angels, resplendent in their earliest years throwback jerseys complete with the original interlocking LA ball cap, strike fear into the hearts of the Yankees with their dominance at the plate? Um, no. Not really.

It was a lot of the same actually. The team hit well, especially Mark Trumbo and Peter Bourjos, but continued to struggle with runners in scoring position. The fielding was tight but neither Weaver nor the Yankee’s Ivan Nova had a great start, though Weaver settled into his groove by the third inning, giving the team five additional strong innings and eight strikeouts. So, not an amazing performance, but the Angels battled through, held the Yankees to two runs for five innings and stubborned out a victory!

Besides, a W is a W and I could not have been more thrilled by the victory – for the team, for Weaver and for Angels fans. In fact, we were just outside of Santa Barbara when the Angels won the game and when my husband read me the last pitch – using the pitch by pitch on Gameday, because our ability to pick up the broadcast cacked it in Ventura – I let out such a loud whoop that we both started cracking jokes about the perils of loud cheering in the friendly confines of a Pontiac G6. So what do you say we do it again tomorrow? Sadly, Dan Haren will miss the first scheduled start of his career but we have Ervin Santana on the mound and that’s nothing to sneeze at. Hmmm…time to start a cycle of winning? Yes, please.

On another note, this amused the heck out of me, so I figured I’d share. I believe I have mentioned before that the majority of my friends are not baseball people? The following statement from our weekly Wednesday gathering at the pub, illustrates this fact better than I ever could. The “lights out” Giants/Cardinals game was on the TV over the bar, Brian Wilson strides out to the mound in all of his Brian Wilson-y glory and my friend asks with a tone of shocked disdain, “Who the hell is that and why is he wearing a fake beard?” A quick glance around the table shows that she was not alone in her question.

Really? Just in case we needed another definition: Baseball people may or may not fear the beard, but they are at least aware of it.

Jeff – Annoying yes, but I admire the guy. He’s a hell of a closer and I think all of the eccentricites are inflated, dressed up and put loudly on display more because he’s quite the brilliant marketer than actually that looney. I was laughing because even with all of the hype, the ring, the commercials and everything else, I was sitting at a table of people who didn’t have a clue who he was, had never even heard of him.

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